Day 268 Tues 10 Jul 2007 Kuopio to Rovaniemi, Finland

A visit to the town square with its bustling market, fish stalls and vendors selling the local speciality, bread filled with ham and lots of little fish which is then sliced a bit like a terrine, and another Marimekko pilgrimage. Then it’s up to the hill overlooking the town, hills are scarce in these parts and this one is 75m high so has a tower and ski-jump. There’s a fantastic panorama over the myriad of lakes and forest which you really can’t appreciate as you drive through the forests. Lakes stretch in all directions, some very large with hundreds of islands.

Back on the road we continue north to Rovaniemi, through spruce and pine forest which gradually gives way to less dense birch woods as we approach the arctic circle. On cue, a magnificent reindeer from central casting with massive antlers struts out of the forest and saunters across the road followed by female. Then it’s more and more trees, interspersed by the occasional farm with ploughed fields of rye and mirror-like lakes until we reach Rovaniemi, on the Arctic Circle where we find the City Hotel and have reindeer pasta for dinner in a Spanish restaurant.